The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to an image recording apparatus for recording an image on an image recording material being transported.
Recently, thermal image recording technology using thermal recording materials comprising a thermal recording layer formed on a rectangular substrate such as paper or film is used to record, for example, the images produced in diagnosis by ultrasonic scanning. This recording method, commonly referred to as thermal image recording, eliminates the need for wet development processing and offers several advantages including convenience in handling. Hence, the use of the thermal image recording system is not limited to small-scale recording applications such as diagnosis by ultrasonic scanning, and an extension to those areas of medical diagnoses such as CT, MRI, and X-ray photography in which large and high quality images are required, is under review.
As known, in the thermal image recording, an image is recorded by heating the thermal recording layer of a thermal recording material using a thermal head having a glaze in which heat generating elements corresponding to the number of pixels of one line are arranged in one direction. More specifically, the thermal image recording is performed in such a manner that the respective heat generating elements of the glaze are heated in accordance with the image data of the image to be recorded while moving the glaze and the thermal recording material relative to each other in a direction approximately perpendicular to the direction in which the heat generating elements are arranged, with the glaze a little pressed against the thermal recording layer of the thermal recording material.
Incidentally, it is ordinarily necessary not only in the thermal printer but also in the image recording apparatus to appropriately transport an image recording material on which an image is recorded in a predetermined transporting direction because the image is recorded on the image recording material which is being transported. The transporting direction of the image recording material being transported is corrected by pressing a side thereof against a guide along the predetermined transporting direction.
This method can be performed with a relatively simple arrangement. However, when the image recording material is thin and liable to be flexed, a problem arises in that the image recording material is deformed and an image cannot be correctly recorded thereon. Although the transporting direction can be corrected with a correction mechanism arranged relatively simply, there is also a problem that it is time-consuming to adjust the correction mechanism because the mechanism is arranged mechanically.
An object of the present invention, which was made in view of the above circumstances, is to provide an image recording apparatus having an image recording material alignment function which can solve the above problems of the conventional art, which does not deform an image recording material even if it is thin and liable to be flexed, and the adjustment of which is not time-consuming.